Stargazing
by Skyskater
Summary: The constellations showed up clearly against the sky. He was glad he could take her stargazing for real, and she was glad that she could be near him.


**A happy fiction.**

**No names, like last time, and something everybody can relate to. Can insert any het. couple in here.**

**ENJOY!**

**If you guess who I am talking about (can be pretty obvious) you get a cake!**

* * *

Bright eyes, soft breath, reflections of sharp tiny lights. And he thinks that this is serenity. No, he knows it is. Maybe more than serenity, even. He doesn't have a word good enough for it in his vocabulary. 

He lies on the cool grass in a circle with his friends, and they look at the sky, at the bright stars that call to them, that give them inspiration for their dreams and actions. They rest there quietly, just letting the silence soak into their bodies, relaxing them after yet another grueling day in life as a street rat.

One by one, his friends drop off to a quiet slumber, marked with gentle and interesting dreams. Sleeping outside on the grarss is so much better than sleeping indoors with those mean adults who always stole their food, water, and blankets, he thinks. He knows his friends feel the same way. Many times on cold winter days has he and his friends huddled up together to warm themselves, sharing not just warmth, but the knowledge that they were there for each other and would always be. And in some ways, the knowledge of their being and their caring was a much greater warmth than the ones their bodies made.

Everyone around him is asleep, he is sure. He doesn't want to sleep yet. Not just yet. He needs more time to ease out all the frustrations from the day, more time to wash away all the stress of seeing the adults battle against the children for sufficient food and water. He hates seeing these fights because he knows that, in a perfect place in the world, adults loved children and children loved adults. He knew it could happen, because he'd seen an old couple just casually strolling along down the street, oblivious to all the hatred around them. He'd figured that they loved each other since they were holding hands, and he figured they had been a couple before because they loved each other and were holding hands. True, love was a strange word, and was often associated with thoughts of divorce and argument and unwanted children. But it could happen, and he could only hope that someday he could have it, too.

He hears a shifting on his right side. He looks at her, the only girl in a pack of unruly guys, and yet she's managed to make them accept her AND find a place all her own. She isn't ordinary, he knows that much. And she's not afraid to get her hands dirty or to show off, either. Which are two major factors in why they accepted her into their little bunch in the first place.

"Why are you still awake?" His words melt into the soft silence, not disturbing, just there, like the moon and the stars and everything else around them.

"Why are YOU still awake?" she asks, and her words overlap his, a mirror image of his own. He doesn't know why he's still awake, and maybe he doesn't really care why he still is. There is no answer to that question, and there probably never will be. So he leaves it at that, and she does too. He is glad; he really doesn't feel like talking right now. She sits up now, leaning back on one hand. He sits up now, too. As the leader of his group, it is his job to watch out for the others.

"What are you doing?" He doesn't want to disturb the others, so he is quiet. He wants to respect her silence, so he is quiet.

"Stargazing, like we came out here to do, right?" She turns her dark eyes to him. So naive...and he smiles. She's still new to this place. She doesn't know that they come out here because it's a refuge, a last resort, their own paradise, if only for a few hours. But he won't tell her that yet. He'll go easy on her for now, let her have her happiness first. Sometimes lies are easier to tell than the truth. He will tell her why they are outside eventually, but not now. There aren't very many nights in this place where the skies are clear and you can really see the constellations. So they might as well take advantage of this night and burn the starry sky into their memories.

He scoots over so that he is next to her. Her dark eyes are large, attentive; he can see the reflection of the many stars in her eyes. She raises a fair hand and points up to the stars, tracing an invisible pattern.

"What's that star's name?" she asks, turning to him. This is only her second time really getting to have a chance to see the stars, and the last time he had told her that there were patterns in the sky that had certain names. He smiles, and reaches out his hand, covering her own. He extends his pointer finger, and, with his hand over hers, he traces another pattern in the midnight sky and then breathes quietly in her ear, "See that? That's Orion."

Her dark eyes enlarge, and she smiles. "Yeah?"

"Mmhmm. And that's Virgo, and that's Sirius, and that's..."

They spend the rest of the night with him pointing out different patterns, and with her ooh-ing and aah-ing in deep fascination. As the sky starts to turn grey to signal dawn is coming, her head falls lightly against his shoulder. She is asleep.

He smiles quietly, knowing he will have to be the one to rouse her a few hours later. She will be cranky, she always is when she doesn't get a full night's sleep. But he knows that after the initial grumpiness is over, she will be glad that she had gotten a chance to become familiar with constellations.

With bright eyes, soft breath, he bends his neck down gently and brushes his lips gently against her smooth petal-soft cheek. He lifts up his hand, covering her own, and extends his pointer finger to trace an invisible heart in the sky.

"And that's Ai. She's the goddess of love. It's the one that I like the most. I think you'll like that one, too. And the best thing about it is that you can see it anytime. I'll show it to you when you wake up."

She sighed softly, her gentle breath warm against his neck, and her eyelids fluttered. "Take me stargazing, and show me Ai again."

His smile is gentle. He says quietly, "Alright. Tonight. Promise."

Bright eyes, soft breath, bright reflection of one big star. The day has come.


End file.
